Disney fairy-tale romantic comedy "Enchanted" stayed on top of the box office in the United States and Canada for a second weekend, while overall ticket sales returned to the slump after a booming Thanksgiving holiday, preliminary figures released Sunday showed. - File Photo

Disney fairy-tale romantic comedy "Enchanted" stayed on top of the box office in the United States and Canada for a second weekend, while overall ticket sales returned to the slump after a booming Thanksgiving holiday, preliminary figures released yesterday showed.

"Enchanted," a film about a cartoon princess who is exiled from the fairyland to real-world New York, took in about US$17 million over the three-day period. It has earned nearly 71 million dollars since its release before the Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, Sony's black-themed comedy "This Christmas" and Paramount's 3-D animated saga of "Beowulf" remained at No. 2 and No. 3 over weekend, with US$8.4 million and US$7.9 million respectively.

Weinstein Co.'s operation room thriller "Awake" became the only new release in the top 10. The film about a Wall Street banker who is conscious during heart surgery opened at No. 4 with US$6 million, followed by 20th Century Fox's video-game adaptation "Hitman" with US$5.8 million.

The top-selling 12 films in North America took in US$76.6 million collectively this weekend, a 6-percent decline from the same weekend last year and only nearly half of that in last weekend, according to Los Angeles-based box office tracking firm Media By Numbers.

However, with the record ticket sales it has achieved this summer with a slew of blockbusters, Hollywood's domestic take so far this year reached about US$8.7 billion this week, up 4.7 percent from the same period last year.